The age of HBS students is a popular topic of conversation in many forums (also see here and here). The general trend is towards students in the < 27 age range, but does that mean getting an MBA from HBS when you’re in your mid to late 30s, or even in your 40s is an impossibility? Or is it just that HBS has very few qualified applicants in those age ranges? There are those who advocate getting an MBA when you’re in your 40s as being perhaps the most valuable point in your career at which to do so. I can see why HBS would focus on younger students, but the question is whether they flatly rule out students in the 40+ range. I have friends who have attended HBS and told me they had students in their classes who were over 40, but of course this is mere rumor. Perhaps those students were only 30 but appeared to be 40 due to 10 years working in investment banking.
I suspect HBS would never state that they rule out anyone and would invite anyone who wants to attend to apply, regardless of their chances. In fact, a query I sent today to the Admissions Office Director’s blog with this text “I’ve seen all sorts of data on the average and median ages of HBS MBA students, but on one end of the graph it generally says ’30+’ and leaves it at that. But I’ve heard from past students that there were occasionally MBA students in their classes who were in their 40s. Is this an urban legend, or is it possible to be accepted to HBS at a 40+ age?” received this response:
Joshua,
Thank you for your inquiry.
The Admissions Board evaluates candidates’ academic and professional performance regardless of their chosen school, company or endeavor. The Board also evaluates candidates’ demonstrated leadership ability.
Please be advised that age is not a criteria for admission to the MBA Program. Candidates must determine if the program would be appropriate for them. To refer to a class profile: www.hbs.edu/mba/profiles/classprofile.html.
Thank you for your interest in the MBA Program.
MBA Admissions
Harvard Business School
Boston, MA 02163
www.hbs.edu/mba
In other words, they’re not going to answer that question. But what does the data say? The graphs tend to not give us much detail, other than to state the number of students who are in the 30+ age range (which is a very small number). Does anyone have factual evidence of the inclusion or exclusion of HBS students in the 40+ age range?
I received the exact same response verbatim, for a different issue. Canned.
(I tried sending this to your email but it got bounced back so I’ll post it here.)
Hey Josh,
Great blog. Here’s some info about me:
38 year old American. Ph.D. in philosophy, Pac-10 school.
GMAT: I have not taken it yet. GRE scores from 10 years ago, 720V, 760Q, 770A though the scores disappear after 5 years so I can’t report this as an alternative to the GMAT.
Extras: published an academic book and several peer-reviewed journal articles in my field. Lectured and taught at several religious non-profit groups in 7 countries throughout Asia/Africa, etc.
Current Position: 2 years as VP of a small international religious educational institution in Asia, previous to that 10 years as the Executive Director of Asian-American non-profit in the USA, and also taught as an adjunct professor for several universities.
I just recently have been interested in MBA/business programs. My needs are more practical, I want the networking without going to school. I was only interested in HBS or Stanford, mostly b/c of the networks. Right now I’m learning towards Executive Education at HBS (if they let me in), or if I can get loan forgiveness then maybe Stanford’s Sloan. I certainly don’t want to spend any more time in school as a student. I’m transitioning out of academics and into academic administration and I think the MBA would be useful, but only if it’s from Harvard or Stanford and those are the two places where my age would really hurt even though I’ve been told by lots of folks (including real students) that I could get in if I was even 6 years younger.
I can relate to much of what you’ve written, I’m a little bit older (38) but for MBA applications we’re pretty much in the same boat. (I’m also married, two kids, Protestant Christian, take my faith seriously, etc.) I think a lot of people have benefitted from what you’ve written about your journey to the Harvard MBA. In particular, I’m sure you’ve received great benefit as well.
The other reason I’m writing is to see if you’ve ever heard of Harvard Extension School? You may be interested in their management program:
http://www.extension.harvard.edu/management/default.jsp
The director explains the difference between an MBA and an ALM in Management. Now, one difference is that you are not allowed to take courses at HBS. I think though it’s fairly inexpensive, and you can take a good chunk of your courses with actual Harvard faculty including some who taught at HBS. If you were younger, I’d recommend going for the ALM and then applying for the MBA while networking with profs. One thing I’ve learned at teaching for several big universities is that the old boy networks are still alive.
I had a friend who was a secretary, office worker make low 30′s or/year, at the U of Chicago business school. After 3 years there she made lots of friends, and she was able to get in without a GMAT! She finished her MBA just fine and I can tell you she had terrible undergrad grades. The profs are able to swing lots of things. Anyways, if you were younger I’d suggest you go for the ALM, make networks as my friend did, and then apply again. You get to be an official alumnus of Harvard (not HBS though), get a harvard email account while studying, and also get a post.harvard.edu email afterwards. .
I emailed a current student at HBS, and he told me in his two years in the MBA program he’s never met anyone older than him and he’s 33. (Military guy.) The Delves-Broughton book talks about a 35 year old who flew the stealth bomber, but that’s the oldest person I’ve ever heard/read about who got into HBS. Of course he did fly a billion dollar plane.
I admire you for your journey and I do hope you get in. I’ll continue to read your blog, great work.
Well, Chris Yeh over at “Ask the Harvard MBA” has his own answer to this MBA-HBS-old-age question, although I’m not sure how definitive it is. His response here seems a bit more solid where he says “The average age of my classmates was 27, and I had plenty of classmates in their early 30s. I even had classmates in their 40s and 50s.”
Maybe Chris didn’t know their exact age, but you would hardly expect him to mistake a 50 year-old for someone in their late 20s, unless that guy was really, really overworked (the 50 year-old, not Chris).
I tried to leave the following comment on the first post but his comment form appeared to not be working since all I got was a blank white page after submission:
I bet this page is getting tons of hits from “old” people wondering if the window of opportunity for them to get an MBA from HBS has passed due to their age. Maybe it deserves its own post from Chris, but anyone who can credibly expand (or expound, for that matter) on Chris’ comment “it’s not unusual to see students in their 30s or even 40s” can expect to receive a lifetime of appreciation and adulation, since the question does not seem to be definitively answered anywhere else. That is, there are plenty of people who will say “Oh, if you’re over 30 you don’t stand a chance,” but what us old folks really want to know is; 1) what are the ages of some of the oldest students accepted to the MBA program at HBS over the past 5-10 years, and 2) what qualities did these students have that made their age irrelevant, or perhaps even an asset?
Maybe Chris will see the trackback from this post and respond.
i have researched this topic thoroughly and
1) there are some outliers at hbs in their early 30s
2) they almost always from THE MILITARY, or have VERY UNCONVENTIONAL yet IMPRESSIVE BACKGROUNDS
ie – an olympic gold medalist, a successful painter etc
Hi Jamie, I’d like to get some more details on your research. Where did you get data about the ages of MBA students at HBS, and how did you find out about their backgrounds?
If you look at the ungraduate graduation years (published on HBS website – class profile) you can get an idea of the oldest admit based on the most distant year shown. Currently, this would put the oldest admit at around 38 assuming they were 22 when they graduated from undergrad.
Hope this helps!